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THE NEW GULLIVER. 



THE NEW 

GULLIVER 



BY 



WENDELL PHILLIPS GARRISON 



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Vox et prater ea nihil 



THE MARION PRESS 

JAMAICA, QUEENSBOROUGH, NEW-YORK 

MDCCCXCV1II 



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Copyright, 1898, by Wendell Phillips Garrison. 






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TO 

H. V. 

Quand les maux ou les ans auront muri ce fruit ephe- 
mere, nous le laisserons tomber sans murmure ; et tout ce 
qu'il peut arriver de pis en toute supposition est que nous 
cesserons alors, moi d' aimer le bien, vous d'en faire. 

Rousseau to Daniel Roguin, September 22 , 1764. 



-♦ 



INDICIA. 

C'etait le temps ou le bimane, 
Vivant dans un champetre enclos, 
Avait le ton, la voix, Torgane, 
Mais non les mots. 

Pot'vin. 

C'est a peu pres la ruse des singes qui, disent les 
Negres, ne veulent pas parler quoiqu'ils le puissent, de 
peur qu'on ne les fasse travailler. 

Rousseau to Hume, March 2g, Ij66. 

So truly as language is what man has made it, just so 
truly man is what language has made him. 

George P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language. 

The whole appears to resolve itself into this — that 
Man is originally a four-footed creature, subject to the 
same mischances as the beasts of the forest. 

Keats, Letter, April, i8iq. 

I said in mine heart it is because of the sons of men, 
that God may prove them, and that they may see that 
they themselves are but as beasts. For that which befal- 
leth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing be- 
falleth them. As the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, 
they have all one breath ; and man hath no pre-eminence 
above the beasts : for all is vanity. All go unto one 
place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. 
Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth up- 
ward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth down- 
ward to the earth ? Ecclesiastes, Hi. 18-27. 



Was bin ich, wenn ich nicht unsterblich bin? Ent- 
weder unsterblich oder weniger als Vieh. Eine Betrach- 
tung . . . liber den Zustand der Menschen und des 
Viehes in dem engen Bezirk ihres Daseyns auf der 

e * t# Pamphlet, Offenbach am Mayn, IJ76. 

Eutrapelus. — Finge igitur animam hominis demigrare 
in corpus galli gallinacei ; num ederet vocem quam nunc 
edimus ? 

Fa bulla. — Nequaquam. 

E. — Quid obstaret? 

F. — Quia desunt labra, dentes et lingua similis : nee 
epiglottis, nee tres adsunt cartilagines a tribus motae 
musculis, ad quos pertinent nervi a cerebro demissi, nee 
fauces nee os simile. 

E. — Quid si in corpus suis ? 

F. — Grunniret suillo more. 

E. — Quid si in corpus cameli? 

F. — Caneret ut canit camelus. 

E. — Quid si in corpus asini, quod evenit Apuleio? 

F. — Ruderet, opinor, ut asinus. 

...... 

F abulia. — Alioqui quidquid adhuc dixit [Aristoteles] 
de anima hominis, competit in asinum et bovem. 

Eutrapelus. — Imo in scarabeum quoque et limacem. 

F. — Quid igitur interest inter animam bo vis et 
hominis ? 

E. — Qui dicunt animam nihil aliud esse quam har- 
moniam qualitatum corporis, faterentur non ita multum 
interesse; videlicet, harmonia soluta, perire animas 
utriusque. Ne ratione quidem distinguitur bo vis ab 
hominis anima, sed quod bourn minus sapit quam homi- 

8 



num ; quemadmodum videre est et homines qui minus 
sapiunt quam bos. 

F. — Nae isti bubulam habent men tern. 

Eutrapelus. — Idem agit scarabei anima in suo corpore. 
Nam quod quaedam aliter aut aliud agit anima hominis 
quam scarabei, partim in causa est materia. Non canit, 
non loquitur scarabeus, quia caret organis ad haec idoneis. 

F abulia, — Illud igitur dicis : si anima scarabei demi- 
graret in corpus hominis, idem ageret quod agit anima 

humana. Erasmus, Colloquia : Puerpera. 

Negas tu quidem, sed aliud dicturi sint equi, si loqui 

liceat. Erasmus, Colloquia: Herilia jussa. 

Goethe spoke of the Horse — how impressive, almost 
affecting, it was that an animal of such qualities should 
stand obstructed so ; its speech nothing but an inarticulate 
neighing, its handiness mere boofmess, the fingers all con- 
stricted, tied together, the finger-nails coagulated into a 
mere hoof, shod with iron. Carlyl ^ Past and Present 

Ye have no more religion than my horse. 

(Pseudo-) Cromwell to Long Parliament. 

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid 

and self-contained . 
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. 

Walt Whitman. 



THE NEW GULLIVER. 




R. Theophilus Brocklebank, 
a graduate of Yale College 
and later a member of the 
Rocky Mountain explor- 
ing party of 1873, ^ a< ^ finally decided 
between his predilections for science 
and for linguistics in favor of the lat- 
ter, and betaken himself to Germany, 
where he zealously pursued his studies 
for two years. At the end of that time 
his health became a concern which 
could no longer be disregarded, and, 
his physician having recommended an 
ocean voyage, he embarked for the 



East via the Suez Canal. On his ar- 
rival in Bombay in the first week of 
August, 1876, he was met by the news 
of Stanley's appearance at Ujiji, after a 
twelvemonth's eclipse among the waters 
of the two Nyanzas; and, obeying a 
sudden whim, and resisting the temp- 
tations which India offered to a student 
of Sanskrit, he took a chance passage 
to Zanzibar on a sailing-vessel carrying 
no European except the officers and 
part of the crew. On the twentieth 
day out, in the early morning, a storm 
such as the Indian Ocean is an adept 
in breeding was encountered, and the 
solitary passenger, climbing, staggering, 
and tumbling on deck, understood at a 
glance that death was not far off. The 



12 



ship lay almost on her beam ends, her 
rent canvas flying in long streamers, 
and the sea breaking over her in fury. 
Theophilus had no sooner taken in the 
situation than a wave heavier and more 
resistless than the rest swept him over 
the stern, and when he had risen to 
the surface the ship was no longer in 
sight. A mass of floating stuff imme- 
diately surrounded him, and he was 
fortunately able to seize and cling to 
a spar which for the moment assured 
his preservation. 

Brocklebank was a good swimmer 
and possessed a cool head, and when 
the tempest had spent itself, which it 
did in a short hour, he managed to get 
astride the spar in order to rest his 

13 



arms as well as for a wider prospect. 
He was not a little cheered by the un- 
expected sight of a low, sandy shore, 
fringed with woods, to the leeward, 
towards which repeated observations 
showed that he was steadily drifting. 
He tried to recall from the chart the 
probable name of the island ( for such 
he was forced to regard it from his 
daily study of the ship's course ), but to 
no purpose. It would have been plea- 
sant to fancy it Zanzibar, but delusive 
also, as Theophilus well knew. Still, 
whatever the land might be called, it 
was the only hope of rescue from his 
present predicament. As the shore 
grew more distinct, he imagined he 
saw huts upon it, and an animal mov- 

H 



ing rather rapidly along the beach ; and 
then, in the very act of straining his 
eyes to confirm their first report, he 
felt that the current had taken a turn 
and was hurrying the spar back out 
to sea. 

Less than a mile ( as he judged ) lay 
between him and the yellow sands, and 
with characteristic decision he resolved 
to swim it. So, casting off everything 
likely to impede his progress, and 
sighting a towering tree as his goal, he 
plunged in and struck out, exerting 
himself only so much as seemed neces- 
sary for headway. The effort was still 
not inconsiderable for his untried 
muscles, and the force of the current 
slightly increased as he neared the 

l 5 



strand. By degrees his strength began 
to fail him, and his heart also ; his en- 
durance almost ceased to be voluntary, 
and when, as the reward of it, a thin 
line of breakers alone remained to be 
overcome, he felt his muscles and his 
mind refuse their office together, was 
barely conscious of being seized firmly 
by the collar of his vest and pulled 
through the foaming waters, and then 
swooned quite away. 

When he awoke, he was lying at 
the foot of his great tree; an earthen 
bowl of milk stood beside him, and at 
a little distance he saw, seated upon its 
haunches and viewing him with a re- 
spectful curiosity and ( as he thought ) 
sympathy, a dapple-gray horse of rare 

16 



intelligence of expression. That The- 
ophilus had fully recovered his senses 
was evidenced by his involuntary excla- 
mation — "A Houyhnhnm! " At this 
the attentive steed pricked up his ears, 
and the mad fancy occurred to the 
shipwrecked philologist that he would 
put to the test some speculations in 
which he had indulged at Berlin, 
when arguing with Professor Friedrich 
Weber that the science of language 
should not acknowledge itself inferior 
to that of anatomy: that if Cuvier 
could reconstruct an animal from a 
few bones, or from a single one, a 
Bopp should be able to frame a gram- 
mar and even a vocabulary from ma- 
terials not less scanty. 

17 



"For example/' said Theophilus, 
"Gulliver has left us not more than a 
dozen and a half words of the lan- 
guage of the Houyhnhnms, yet I ven- 
ture to believe that I can show how 
their parts of speech were formed and 
inflected, and in what direction we 
have to look for roots not indicated by 
Gulliver." 

Any other than a German professor 
would have stared at the propounder of 
such a thesis, but Brocklebank was en- 
couraged by Weber to proceed, and the 
result was, that he gave himself to the 
task for a fortnight with consuming 
ardor, and in the end produced roots, 
words, phrases, a system of syntax 
which the good professor could not 

18 



call in question — though he could not, 
with Gulliver, discover in it any affin- 
ity to the High Dutch — and which 
our Theophilus never dreamed that he 
should have an opportunity of demon- 
strating. 

He now, not without stammering, 
and in as great fear of faulty accent and 
grammatical solecisms as if he were 
addressing a member of the French 
Academy, began to accost his preser- 
ver; at first with thanks, which he 
instantly perceived to be compre- 
hended, though, whether from high 
breeding or from sheer amazement, the 
noble animal said nothing in response. 
It was necessary for Theophilus to go 
further. 

l 9 



in 



the 



same 



"I am/' he ventured, 
plight with Gulliver — " 

At the sound of this name the horse 
quivered with delight. He rose to his 
feet, gently pushed the bowl of milk 
nearer to the shipwrecked man, as if 
begging him to partake, and asked, 
speaking very slowly and distinctly, 

"Do I see the son of Gulliver ?" 

"No," answered Theophilus, check- 
ing his amusement by the thought that 
the term of life of a foreign Yahoo 
might well be unknown to his inter- 
locutor; and vastly pleased withal that 
he had indeed rediscovered the land of 
the famous voyager. "No, there are so 
many lives between us" (holding up 
eight fingers, for he was a little weak 



20 



in the Houyhnhnm numerals); "nor 
am I of his countrymen, though I 
speak the same language." 

"His name," said the dapple-gray, 
"has been handed down to us and is 
known of all, and it was my ancestor 
who first met and befriended him. His 
coming marks the greatest change in 
our thoughts and beliefs. We are ac- 
customed, for certain purposes, to date 
before and after Gulliver. Perhaps you 
can tell us of him?" 

"His fate is obscure," replied The- 
ophilus warily. "He returned to Eng- 
land, his native country, where he lived 
to relate the story of his adventures on 
this island, which was scoffed at as pure 
invention by the most, but which he 



21 



authenticated by the difficulty he found 
in reconciling himself to live with his 
fellow-Yahoos, even with his own wife. 
Should I ever be restored to my native 
land (which Englishmen settled), I 
should rejoice to report the progress 
you have made in the meantime/' 

The labor of putting these ideas in 
shape in the language of the Houyhn- 
hnms was, for Brocklebank, almost as 
exhausting as his struggle with the 
breakers. He took a copious draught 
of milk and lay down, while the con- 
siderate beast resumed his sitting pos- 
ture near him. 

"Rest, Gulliver," he said. And then, 
"But I must no longer confound you. 
By what name should you be called?" 



22 



Brocklebank found, to his great satis- 
faction, that his surname gave the steed 
even less trouble to pronounce, after 
two or three repetitions, that that of 
Gulliver; and, having expressed his de- 
sire, while recovering his strength, to 
hear about the revolution produced by 
Gulliver's visit, he reclined at his ease 
while the dapple-gray retailed the his- 
tory of the island since the days of 
good Queen Anne. But, that the nar- 
rative might have a definite point of 
departure — " Gulliver reported," said 
Theophilus, "that, shortly before he 
left this country, your Grand Council 
debated whether the Yahoos should be 
exterminated, and were so nearly of 
that mind that your ancestor felt com- 

23 



pelled to dismiss Gulliver. When, if I 
may, I go up with you to the city, I 
shall see with my own eyes what has 
become of the Yahoos. Meanwhile, 
let us begin with them." 

"You have," said the dapple-gray, 
"put your finger on the source of the 
great transformation which has come 
over us. I have heard my grandfather 
tell that while it was still unsettled 
what policy should be enforced towards 
the Yahoos, and not long after Gulli- 
ver had put to sea, the country was in- 
vaded, as formerly by the Yahoos from 
the mountains, now by a troop of di- 
minutive four-toed Houyhnhnms ( I use 
the name for your understanding) — a 
creature undreamt of, issuing from re- 

24 



mote swamps; in numbers to be com- 
pared only with rats. The words of re- 
monstrance which in all reasonableness 
we addressed to them for overrunning 
our plantations were not intelligible to 
them, nor did they appear to have any 
language of their own, beyond vague 
cries, nor any arts or civic organization. 
In short, while we were deliberating 
whether to exterminate the Yahoos, 
we were in danger of being ourselves 
exterminated by creatures bearing our 
own image, but manifestly devoid of 
reason, justice, or moderation. 

"By the utmost exercise of force, in 
which the Yahoos themselves were 
found indispensable, we succeeded in 
destroying a great many, and in driving 

25 



back to their fastnesses all but a few, 
who were retained captive from curi- 
osity, and some of whose descendants I 
will presently show you as we go up 
to the town. But it was impossible 
after that for us to entertain the same 
ideas concerning ourselves or the world 
about us. We compared ourselves with 
the four-toed enemy, and observed a 
difference in mental capacity and be- 
havior like that observed in the case of 
our own Yahoos and of Gulliver. This 
not only confirmed the belief in our 
own perfection, but led the more inqui- 
sitive to speculate on the causes of the 
favor we enjoyed over all created be- 
ings. My ancestor, remembering his 
conversations with Gulliver, conceived 

26 






there might be something in the idea 
of a Great Spirit as entertained by the 
foreign Yahoos; and, the doctrine be- 
ing urged, a division by and bye arose 
that has lasted to this time, though 
there are now few who deny the exis- 
tence of a Supreme Houyhnhnm. Do 
you understand what I mean?" 

" Perfectly, ' ' answered Theophilus ; 
"he is what we call God." 

"Had we stopped there," continued 
the dapple-gray, "all might have been 
well; but from that speculation we 
passed to considerations of what hap- 
pened after death — whether we should 
live again in another form not subject 
to suffering and decay; whether, as we 
maintained degrees of subordination 

27 



here, — the white, sorrel, and iron- 
gray being in the lower station, and 
not admitted to intermarriage, — the 
same thing would hold in a future life, 
or even whether there would be any 
future life for the lower grades. Upon 
this, other divisions grew up, some af- 
firming and others denying a future life, 
and the lower orders maintaining their 
right to it on an equality with the 
higher. Hence a disturbance of the 
old relations, frequent controversies over 
rank and duties, attempts to intermarry, 
and such passions and disorders that it 
began to be seen that a future life on 
this pattern would not be worth having. 
"A new sect sprang up, having for 
its doctrine that the future life was in- 

28 



deed for all Houyhnhnms, but that 
some, the rational-minded, would have 
a tranquil and happy existence, while 
the turbulent and contentious would 
be visited with everlasting punishment. 
Such a compromise furnished a mode 
of return to our old harmony so far as 
that all were given a chance of a bliss- 
ful hereafter, and it has been adopted 
by all save a small minority, who pro- 
fess simple ignorance of the whole 
matter. These are generally regarded 
( by myself among others ) as certain to 
be damned eternally, notwithstanding 
their good behavior during their life 
here. 

"But the day is advancing, and we 
should be going up to my house — the 

29 



same, only made over, which Gulliver 
shared/' 

The way led through a park-like 
country with short vistas, along a well- 
beaten road, in a turn of which they 
came upon an enclosure of perhaps 
three acres, where were grazing, or 
running at large, the tiniest horses ever 
seen by the eye of man. They had the 
size of a fox, but were too far off to 
reveal their digits. 

" Behold," said the dapple-gray to 
Theophilus, whose conjecture had out- 
stripped the announcement, "the de- 
graded travesty of the Houyhnhnm ! ' 

He would have passed on, but 
Brocklebank entreated him to stay 
for a nearer view of these extraor- 

30 



dinary creatures. The beast good- 
naturedly complied, and of his native 
courtesy summoned help to drive the 
little troop towards the nearest portion 
of the field. Upon this, appeared a 
number of Yahoos wanting little of the 
odious aspect ascribed to them by Gul- 
liver, and proving that the race had 
not been exterminated. They had, the 
dapple-gray explained, been spared for 
their aid in driving off not only the 
four-toed invaders, but a later and more 
annoying ( because tree-climbing ) set 
of invaders of their own kind, though 
smaller and having tails, and whose 
very likeness made them ( so it seemed 
to the lords of the island ) more hateful 
to the Yahoos. 

31 



The keepers of the herd had no 
difficulty in bringing them to the 
paling, and Theophilus viewed with 
strange emotions what Darwin would 
have called a "living fossil," that had 
endured so long "from having in- 
habited a confined area, and from 
having been exposed to less varied, 
and therefore less severe, competition." 
He had no doubt that he saw in the 
flesh and in active motion that very 
Orobippus major (Marsh) whose bones, 
entombed in the Eocene formation 
of Wyoming, he had with his own 
hands disengaged to be shipped to 
New Haven. There were the four 
toes before and the three behind, and 
there were the large canine teeth, indi- 

32 



eating that the mouth still remained 
the animal's chief defence for want of 
the vigorous single- toed hoof of Equus. 
Theophilus explained to his guide, as 
well as he could, the strange circum- 
stance, and was no less surprised than 
delighted when told that some car- 
cases, having escaped detection for 
burial, had been picked clean by ro- 
dents and insects, and the skeletons 
thus prepared had been saved in a 
museum not far off. 

In fact, the building which answered 
to this name, contained not only the 
skeletons in question, but (such had 
been the growth of curiosity since 
Gulliver's day among the Houyhn- 
hnms) of asses, cows, and even some 

33 



of the Houyhnhnms themselves, and, 
along with skeletons of the monkey 
incursionists, others of the Yahoos. He 
therefore examined with much interest 
the bones of Orohippus, when his quick 
eye detected a rudimentary fifth toe 
that he had overlooked in the living 
animal, and, pointing it out to his 
guide, he held up his five fingers to 
suggest the parallelism. Such a genus 
had not been unearthed in America, 
and he was charmed with the thought 
that he might some day connect his 
name with it, little dreaming that, at 
that very moment, Huxley was pre- 
dicting to a New York audience its 
ultimate discovery (in his last lecture 
on "The Direct Evidence of Evolu- 

34 



tion"), and that Professor Marsh would 
promptly bring to light from the low- 
est Eocene deposits his five-toed Eo- 
hippus. 

"I see," said Theophilus to his 
equine friend, "that the resemblance 
of your own bodies to those of your 
little enemy has not escaped the notice 
of your savants who have mounted 
these bones here. Still more would it 
strike you if you could see, as I have 
seen in my country, a row of skeletons 
beginning with four toes and ending 
with Houyhnhnms, and passing through 
all the intervening sizes. From that we 
make bold to say that the one-toed 
is derived from the four-toed ( or, as I 
now perceive, from the five-toed)/' 

35 



"The absurdity is worthy of a Ya- 
hoo/' said the dapple-gray with some 
irritation, "and it would not be pru- 
dent to mention such an idea to any- 
body but myself. This foreign race 
has neither mind nor reason; has at 
most a blind instinct like that of rats, 
rabbits, or our Yahoos/ ' 

"But," said Theophilus, "looking at 
the series grading off into each other, 
it is hard to believe that there is any 
essential difference among them, and 
my countrymen do in fact connect 
them together, while acknowledging 
the Houyhnhnms to be much the most 
advanced and noble creation. We 
put it in this way: we ask ourselves, 
Would the inhabitants of another 

36 



world, entering our museums and 
studying these skeletons, suspect any 
difference — I do not say in mind or 
reason, but in community of origin?" 

"Perhaps not," answered the dapple- 
gray, "but this would only prove how 
little such rubbish has to tell. Can 
these five-toed dwarfs build houses, 
cultivate the soil, make vessels of clay, 
compose poetry, or calculate eclipses? 
Judge, then, how impassable is the 
gulf between us. Greater than all dis- 
tinctions, however, — as great as be- 
tween you Gullivers and our Yahoos, — 
is the destiny assigned to each, proving 
that we are separate creations, with no 
other than an accidental outward re- 
semblance. For who can believe that 

37 



these brutes are to live hereafter, or, 
more ridiculous still, that they are dam- 
nable by the Supreme Houyhnhnm?" 

Theophilus felt that the debate was 
approaching dangerous ground. Still, 

"How can you be so sure of that?" 
he inquired. 

" Because salvation and damnation are 
reserved for creatures possessing a moral 
sense." 

"But is the moral sense lacking in 
such as live peaceably among them- 
selves, albeit without arts and the 
higher knowledge? Do not even your 
Yahoos obey you, as your servant class 
does, and is there not something of 
morality in their subordination, how- 
ever much inspired by fear?" 

38 



"You waste your breath," said the 
steed; "there can be no moral sense 
without language. But for that, you 
Gullivers would have remained simple 
Yahoos." 

"I am glad," remarked Theophilus 
with a smile, "that you leave us some 
hope of a future existence." 

"I am not certain as to that: it is 
a question which I do not recall ever 
having heard debated. But of one 
thing I am positive, that you are, and 
(if you live again) will be, held ac- 
countable for your misdeeds, whereas 
it would be the height of the ridi- 
culous thus to hold our Yahoos, who 
simply act out their own imperfect 



natures." 



39 



"Your perfection, suffer me to say, 
seems to me to hang upon a very 
slender difference between yourselves 
and your five-toed enemies, who, if 
they cannot converse among themselves, 
have yet a voice, and cries of warning, 
rage, and affection, that are intelligible 
to them and easy to be understood 
by us." 

"Be the difference small or great," 
responded the dapple-gray tartly and 
after a pause, "it is enough." 

"But," urged Theophilus, "suppose 
you only acquired your power of 
speech?" 

"Impossible! It needed a special 
act of creation. The Supreme Houyhn- 
hnm purposely drew the line. Think 

4 o 



of the infinite trouble of judging the 
deserts of cows, weasels, rabbits, fish, 
and Yahoos!" 

" What ! " exclaimed Brocklebank, 
"you actually boast of a possession 
which, while it crowns your perfection, 
brings you in danger of everlasting 
punishment?" 

"And do you do otherwise ? ,: re- 
torted the steed. "Look," he con- 
tinued, pointing to the skeletons of 
monkeys and Yahoos; "would your 
planetary visitor not see a likeness in 
these creatures to yourself, and infer 
a common origin with as much cer- 
tainty as your wise heads make a series 
beginning with Houyhnhnms and end- 
ing with our five-toed counterfeits? 

41 



Tell me, do you ascribe a moral sense 
to these long-tailed Yahoos — I had 
almost said Gullivers? Or do they per- 
haps speak in your country ?" 

"They have no language." 

"Well, then, do you allow them a 
moral sense? do you concern yourselves 
about what becomes of them here- 
after?" 

"We do not," confessed Brockle- 
bank — "nor," he was tempted to add, 
" about our Houyhnhnms, to whom we 
at least atone for all the hardship and 
cruelty we visit upon them, by sparing 
them the glorious privilege of eternal 
punishment in another existence." 

"And wherein does your perfection 
lie if not in speech alone ? and is it not 

42 



by speech that you are damned, and by 
want of it that they escape ?' ; 

Brocklebank in his turn was silent, 
and there leaped to mind a saying of 
the savages of Luzon, with regard to 
the apes, that they do not speak for 
fear of being obliged to pay taxes. At 
length he resumed: 

"As respects the future life, perhaps 
it might have been better if language 
had been denied us." 

"That is neither here nor there. 
You would have us Houyhnhnms ac- 
knowledge our kinship with dumb 
beasts having an outward resemblance 
to ourselves not greater than that be- 
tween yourselves and these tailed Ya- 
hoos, whom, nevertheless, you do not 

43 



deny that you do not include in your 
scheme of morality in this life, or of 
salvation in the next." 

"I must admit," said Brocklebank, 
"that our perfection rests on the same 
basis as yours — that is, on language; 
and that theology was invented for 
those who talk. We have an old poem 
containing the Debate of the Body 
and the Soul, which hints at this. '1 
should/ says the Body — 



cc c 



I should have been but as the sheep, 

Or like the oxen or the swine, 
That eat and drink, and lie and sleep, 

Are slain, and after know no pain; 
Nor money cared to win or keep, 

Nor knew the odds of well or wine, 
Nor now be bound to helle deep, 

But for those cursed wits of thine ! ' 

44 



Yet the trouble, after all, lay not with 
the Soul's wits, but with the Body's 
vocal organs — for we cannot deny wits 
(/. e., intelligence, comprehension, ideas) 
to the dumb creation." 

Even as he spoke, Theophilus ob- 
served a strange agitation in his com- 
panion, who, by virtue of his four feet, 
was soonest conscious of a trembling of 
the earth which quickly grew until to 
the human sense also it was plainly per- 
ceptible. Both hurried to the doorway 
of the museum, through which the 
Houyhnhnm might easily have pre- 
ceded, but he civilly refused the advan- 
tage, and Brocklebank — not more by 
his own volition than by his mo- 

45 



mentum — passed out, and just in time, 
for the hut fell at that instant, entang- 
ling the belated and self-sacrificing 
steed. The shocks were now so violent 
that Brocklebank, longing in vain to 
extricate his two-fold saviour, could not 
stand upright. The sky was overcast. 
In the distance a light like that of 
an eruption was visible. The cries of 
the Yahoos were heard on all sides, 
mingled with neighing and the bel- 
lowing of kine. Theophilus was aware 
of a general movement of creeping 
things past him shoreward, then of a 
reflex movement, as of the sea pursu- 
ing. In fact, the land was sinking; 
and, as he stood up to meet his fate, he 
was lifted upon the flood. The sub- 

4 6 



sidence was gradual, but effective, and 
in a few hours there was nothing left 
of the civilization or the race of the 
Houyhnhnms, or of their peculiar the- 
ology, for which the universe had now 
no further need. 

While all this was going on, the 
passengers on the steamer Sfieo/, Burn- 
ham master, from Port Darwin bound 
for Liverpool, were terrified by succes- 
sive shocks which they at first inter- 
preted, as did the captain himself, to 
mean that the vessel had grounded, but 
to which they presently assigned the 
true cause in some neighboring earth- 
quake. Towards the close of the after- 
noon an extraordinary shoal of carcases, 

47 



mostly horses, was encountered — so 
great that no foundered ship could 
have contained them all. In the midst 
of them, on a sort of natural raft, a 
half-clothed human form, more dead 
than alive, was descried; and, a boat 
having been lowered, it proved to be 
no other than our American, who was 
taken on board and tenderly restored. 

Brocklebank reached New York by 
Thanksgiving day, which he celebrated 
with his family in no perfunctory spirit, 
while they were not a little alarmed 
for his sanity by his strange recital of 
what had befallen him. He paid an 
early visit to Professor Marsh at New 
Haven, and was dumfounded by the 
sight of Eohippus already set up in its 

4 8 



place. Fearing that scientist's incre- 
dulity, he kept silent about his experi- 
ence with the "living fossil," and con- 
tented himself with volunteering to 
join the next Yale expedition to the 
Rockies. Meanwhile, he pondered 
much on the theological problem 
which had survived the Houyhnhnm 
cataclysm, and set to work upon a 
treatise having for epigraph that query 
of Carlyle's, in the 'Latter-Day Pam- 
phlets,' 

"Am I not a horse and half-brother?" 

this couplet of Baudelaire's, 

"Nous sommes des animaux, 
Voila mon systeme!" 

and Darwin's 

" — but man can do his duty"; 
49 



and beginning with the following ex- 
tract from the sixteenth chapter of 
JudcTs ' Margaret ' : 

"'What is God?' said Margaret one 
morning to the Master, who in his peram- 
bulations encountered her just as she was 
driving the cow to pasture, and helped her 
put up the bars. 

"'God, God — ' replied he, drawing back 
a little, and thrusting his golden-headed 
cane under his arm and blowing his nose 
with his red bandanna handkerchief. 'You 
shut your cow in the pasture to eat grass, 
don't you, mea discipula?' added he, after 
returning the handkerchief to his pocket, 
and planting himself once more upon his 
cane. 

" 'Yes/ she replied. 
"'What if she should try to get out?' 
" ' We put pegs in the bars sometimes/ 
" ' Pegs in the bars ? ahem ! Suppose she 
should stop eating, and, leaning her neck 

50 






across the bars, cry out, cc O you, Mater 
hominum bovumque ! who are you ? Why 
do you wear a pinafore ?" — in other words, 
should ask after you, her little mistress; 
what would you think of that, hey ? ' 

" c I don't know what I should/ replied 
Margaret, c it would be so odd/ 

uc Cows,' rejoined the Master, c had bet- 
ter eat the grass, drink the water, lie in the 
shade, and stand quietly to be milked, ask- 
ing no questions.' " 



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